As a senior Organizational Communication student, I have lost count on how many times our professors drilled into our minds the importance of stakeholder analysis. Across our many different subjects, the emphasis placed on understanding stakeholders never faltered - whether it be in our public relations class or in our latest lectures about communication trends and styles.

In the simplest terms, stakeholder analysis is engaging the right people in the right way in a certain project. Who are your stakeholders? What do they want? What do they like? What do they dislike? What makes them tick? Asking such questions and getting the right answers can go a long way. It can serve as a strong foundation for your project - be it as a communications plan, a public relations plan, or even a simple newsletter.

With a well-understood stakeholder analysis comes great content.

Among the benefits of knowing your stakeholders, the best thing it can provide you is an unshakable basis for your content. Powerful substance can only be formed through understanding your stakeholders. Knowing their attitudes and characteristics will enable you to come up with a content tailor-fitted for them. And when the message you try to communicate is in the same league as their interests, then it can only go uphill from there.

Some people believe that, "It doesn't matter what you're saying - it's whether you can sell it."

I beg to disagree. This article is written to disprove this misconception, and to establish the importance of good content. Let me take you to two main reasons why you should mind your content more than anything else.

1) Compelling content drives engagement.

Communication is a two-way process. Exchange of ideas should be done both ways - from the organization to the stakeholders and vice versa. Messages shouldn't be coming from the sender only. There has to be interaction. An atmosphere that allows both parties to express their opinion, feelings, and ideas should be fostered. 

Compelling content can help you with that. 

This is something I have just proved recently. I am fortunate to be a part of a team that qualified for the 2014 PR Students' Grand Prix finals. It is a competition which requires the contestants to come up with a PR plan for a certain entity. This year's theme is doing PR for the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP). 

Among our tasks is to create social media accounts in line with our PR plan. Through our week-long experiment in Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, our team was able to discover one thing: compelling content drives engagement. 

People responded to our accounts eagerly because we strive to keep our posts, tweets, and video grounded with substance. We aimed to send across messages that they would like and learn from. Their responses were overwhelming. All because we valued content.

And, let's be honest. Engagement is one of the most sought-after things of communicators. Establishing a relevant connection with your stakeholders is a key to success. 

2) Substance increases the reliability of the organization/brand.

Good substance increases your credibility. If you work hard to put high importance to the content you bring to your stakeholders, it is no question that their trust in your organization/brand will shoot sky-high. 

Using the same experience, in handling our team's Twitter account, we kept our tweets all about public relations. We tweet about tips, things to keep mindful of, and things to avoid. We were open to questions, and we replied to our mentions. We engaged with our audience while valuing substance at the same time. 

To our surprise, international PR professional started following us. People start to trust our campaign handle as proved by the surge of followers. 

Our team's reliability increased because we were consistent. We clearly expressed to our audience who we are, what we aim to do, and what we want while considering their needs and interests. That's substance.

Compelling content brings about two of the most important things communicators value: engagement and reliability. 

A product or a service can be marketed to a target audience in many ways. Aside from the traditional way of marketing products (tv, radio, print ads), the Internet is now being used as a tool for marketing as well. Marketers are now finding more and more unique ways of reaching customers thus, giving birth to more types of marketing. There are probably more than a hundred types of marketing and here are just some of them (plus some examples):

Internet Marketing

Internet marketing is any marketing strategy that takes place online. It encompasses a variety of marketing forms like video advertisements, search engine marketing and e-mail marketing.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches

I stumbled upon this video a few months ago. It is an advertisement which Dove uploaded on video-sharing website, Youtube, which allowed users from the Internet to watch it on their computers. You can watch the video here.

Trade Show Marketing

Companies that want to reach a large number of potential customers can participate in public or private event. These are often a large investment to participate in, but these events allow companies to demonstrate new products and examine what is going on in the industry.

SuperSale Bazaar

I was able to go to one of these SuperSale bazaars last December. Many shops take advantage of big events like this in order to be known and to sell their products to their target market. 

Search Marketing

It is the way in which companies promote their business through paid placement on search engines like Google. Instead of increasing the organic search results that a website has, companies will pay to have their advertisements in the sponsored section of search engines. This is also known as Pay Per Click Advertising or PPC.

Google search

Companies pay Google to put their websites as paid search results for words related to their company, like for this screencap, where "online shopping" was searched and online shopping websites like Zalora and Ayos Dito appeared as ads which seem to be a part of the search results.

Youtube

  Direct Marketing

Its main goal is to send a message directly to consumers, without having to use any third party outlets. Examples of this include mail marketing, telemarketing and direct selling. This is often preferable because the results can be easily measured, giving the marketer a better understanding of the success of that campaign.

Direct Selling (Mary Kay, Avon, etc.)

Niche Marketing

When a product or service is not being readily supplied to a certain portion of a market, a company can focus their efforts on that group to address a need that isn't currently being addressed. This targeted marketing is successful because the marketer has identified a need that isn't being resolved by mainstream providers. Sometimes it is beneficial for a company to focus on a group instead of trying to compete in a larger market.

Baby Ultrasound Co.

This organization caters only to a certain portion of the market - pregnant women. They have identified pregnant women's needs like ultrasound and consultations and have decided to focus on catering to those special needs. 

Drip marketing

Drip marketing is the act of sending out scheduled targeted emails that are all coordinated to a specific goal of client conversion. The sender uses email marketing software that allows them to setup multiple emails at one time and let them “drip” over time. This sometimes includes phone calls to check in on the clients along the way.

MTV and VH1

I signed up in MTV's website a few years ago (to join a contest or vote somewhere, I can't really remember why) and I might have checked the option of receiving notifications and updates about MTV and VH1, which is a sister channel of MTV. Since then, I have been receiving emails about promos, new television shows, new music I can download, and other news related to their network. This emails I regularly receive are examples of MTV and VH1 applying the drip marketing strategy. 

Social Media Marketing

This provides a window to market a product or service on the Internet through different social networks. Companies can use these outlets for their marketing, customer service and sales. The most common and successful means of social media marketing are found on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and even company blogs.

Facebook ads

Many companies place ads on Facebook in order to promote their products and services to its users. Most of these ads also indicate users' friends who like the product, encouraging them to check out the product just as their friends did.

Referral Marketing

This relies on a company’s customers to refer new customers to that company. Also called word of mouth marketing, this is a more spontaneous way of receiving new business, and can not be solely relied on because results aren't very predictable. However, word of mouth is still a powerful part of a company’s efforts to bring in new business, especially in the social media community where communication travels freely.

Referrals on online forums

Many people visit online forums to ask other online users for recommendations for certain products or services. This is a good way of passing information about a company through word-of-mouth.

Promotional Marketing

This is a common form of marketing strategy that companies use to motivate a consumer to make an immediate decision and purchase their product. There are a number of ways that businesses will promote a product or service, including holding contests to win a prize, offering coupons for purchasing a product at a discount, and having samples of the product so people can experience it before they purchase.

Walter Mart discount coupons

Giving grocery shoppers discount coupons encourages them to visit the supermarket (in this case, Walter Mart) again when they need to buy groceries because of the savings they will get through the coupons.

Head & Shoulders (Procter & Gamble)

Buy one, take one promos motivate customers to purchase the product because it allows them to buy two products for the price of one, leading to more savings.

B2B Marketing

Business to bussiness marketing is any type of business, whether an organization, individual, government or other institution that markets to other businesses involved in this type of marketing.

LBC and Palawan Express

LBC and Palawan Express' partnership opened both companies to more customers.

Robinsons and MasterCard

Though they offer two different services and products,  tRobinsons and MasterCard both attracted customers to their repective companies through their partnership.

Mobile Marketing

Companies have been experimenting with the certain ways to reach consumers through their phones, especially with the rise of Apple’s iphone. Some ways to marketing a product or service through a mobile phone include SMS marketing, in-game marketing, banner marketing on different web pages and location based marketing.

Globe Telecom

Like other telecommunications companies, Globe applies mobile marketing, SMS marketing to be specific. Through text advisories being sent daily, Globe communicates their new promos and offerings to Globe users.

Personalized Marketing

The goal of this type of marketing is to create a unique offer for each individual customer. This form of marketing doesn’t work for every company, but certain ones can capitalize on their unique products and customer demographics to market to individuals

Globe My Super Plan

Globe's Best Ever My Super Plan allows customers to customize their own plans, making it more personalized and convenient. This attracts customers because it gives them freedom to choose what they want when they avail of Globe's plans. 

Trade Marketing

This is a type of marketing that entails increasing the demand at the wholesaler, retailer or distributor level and not the consumer.

Golden Fiesta, Milo, and Lucky Me

These are just some of the companies who apply trade marketing by distributing their products to supermarkets. They usually put up signs on supermarket shelves to catch the customers' attention. 

Marketing, advertising, public relations - these are the three fields I always say whenever someone asks me what my future in Organizational Communication will be. I know there are a lot of other fields Orcom can lead me to - law, research, human resources, to name a few - but those three are always the ones off the top of my head. I already have a background on advertising and public relations, but what about marketing? I have never had a concrete background on marketing but after completing my internship, I can see myself working in that field. I know that if I want to pursue with this, I have to acquire a more solid foundation on marketing.

Luckily, one of our major courses for this semester is Communication Trends and Styles under Maam Thea Gutierrez and integrated marketing communication or IMC will be our main focus. I became really excited because everything I will learn from this course will be useful for my not-so-distant future. 

So, what is marketing?

Marketing is the discipline used by organizations to determine the products needed by customers and providing them these products with the right pricing and placement. It is not a mere aspect or department of an organization; it is the organization's philosophy.

Various types of marketing were also introduced to the class through a mini activity. Some of these types include direct, digital, trade, viral, trade show, mobile, personalized, B2B, sports, promotional, and search engine marketing. Having so many types of marketing just shows how marketers find so many ways to communicate products to customers. 

Because of the many types of marketing that emerged, many careers for marketers have surfaced as well. Marketers can be in social media marketing, public relations, sales, advertising, customer relationship management, market research, sports marketing, trade marketing, retail, events planning, and many others. But in order to be a successful, marketers should possess specific traits: business orientation, communication and people skills, inquisitive nature, and humility.